


the battleground between us

by TripsH



Category: Haikyuu!!
Genre: Angst, Character Death, Code Geass AU, I'm so sorry, M/M, Violence
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-28
Updated: 2015-06-28
Packaged: 2018-04-06 13:55:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4224204
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TripsH/pseuds/TripsH
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Oikawa wants to fight for a world different from the one where everything had been taken from him. He wants to obliterate any force that's spited him and pushed him down. </p><p>Iwaizumi wants a peaceful world. One without corruption and fighting and death. He wants to eliminate people like Oikawa—although he doesn't know that Oikawa is the one who he's so passionately fighting against. </p><p>
  <i>But even if they're on different sides, even if they meet in battle, Oikawa knows he loves Iwaizumi.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	the battleground between us

**Author's Note:**

> A fill for saso. The prompt was iwaoi Code Geass au 
> 
> tfw you haven't written iwaoi in a while so you write something sad :') Really though, Code Geass is one of my favorites ever, and I couldn't resist filling this prompt as soon as I saw it.

The summer when they're ten years old, Oikawa makes a promise.   
  
"One day, I'm going to destroy Britannia."   
  
Iwaizumi only looks on, then. Silent, watching his best friend stare at Japan's takeover, pure anger and hatred in his eyes even though the victors are his family.   
  
("They're not my family," Oikawa says, angry, fists clenched when Iwaizumi mentions it one summer night under the stars. " _That man_  isn't my father."   
  
Then, quiet, as they're falling asleep, as he holds Iwaizumi's hand tightly, squeezes:   
  
"Iwa-chan, you're my family, okay? So don't leave me.") 

...

They end up separated in all the chaos that comes with the invasion and Japan's takeover. Oikawa, knowing he has no worth to the Britannian Empire, is discarded like he's nothing once they achieve their ends in Japan. His father banished him here in the first place, used him as a political tool.   
  
He won't be that. Not anymore. He won't have any part in it.   
  
As far as any Britannians know, he's dead.   
  
None of them matter to him. All he wants is to destroy them, to make them pay for taking away everything important to him—his mother, Iwaizumi, his life. 

He's not sure how he'll be able to do that until one day he gets caught up in a military operation he shouldn't even be near. Obtaining a Geass, gaining the ability to control others simply by telling them what to do and they're suddenly unable to disobey, from the boy the Britannian military had been trying to transport is the last thing Oikawa expects.   
  
Meeting Iwaizumi again, being reunited with him is also completely unexpected.   
  
"Iwa-chan!" It's been almost seven years apart, and Oikawa can't control himself, can't stop himself from throwing his arms around Iwaizumi and hugging him tightly. "Iwa-chan, I missed you!"   
  
Iwaizumi seems just as surprised as he is. "Oikawa?"   
  
"You're here! You're okay!"   
  
"Yeah. Yeah, I'm fine." Iwaizumi smiles, hugs him back. "I'm happy to see you." 

...

They have different goals, different means, different purposes. But everything still feels easy when they're together. When Iwaizumi ends up attending the same school Oikawa does, it seems like everything falls right back into place.   
  
Like this is how it should be. Like they're meant to be by each other's sides.   
  
Oikawa wants to fight for a world different from the one where everything had been taken from him. He wants to obliterate any force that's spited him and pushed him down.   
  
Iwaizumi wants a peaceful world. One without corruption and fighting and death. He wants to eliminate people like Oikawa—although he doesn't know that Oikawa is the one who he's so passionately fighting against. 

(Oikawa wonders if that would change anything, though. He knows he and Iwaizumi have a bond, an unbreakable one, but would that change if Iwaizumi discovered Oikawa leading a rebellion across Japan, fueled by hatred that has finally burst, made possible with his charisma and the newfound ability of his Geass.)   
  
But even if they're on different sides, even if they meet in battle, Oikawa knows he loves Iwaizumi. The words he had whispered under the stars when they were only ten years old still are completely true.   
  
Iwaizumi is his family, is the person who matters most to him. And no matter what, nothing will change that.  
  
"Don't think too hard, Iwa-chan. Your brain might explode." Oikawa sits down next to him in class, ignoring the whispers of their fellow classmates who can't believe someone like Iwaizumi would attend a Britannian school. That he would dare to show his face among them.   
  
"Shut up, stupid." Iwaizumi smiles, despite leaning forward to flick Oikawa's forehead. He seems relieved, happy, that nothing has changed between them. That everything still feels so familiar.   
  
"Still so mean, even seven years later. I think it's time you grew up, Iwa-chan." Oikawa grins, leans close to him.   
  
"You still act the same as back then, too, Oikawa. Maybe you're the one who should grow up."   
  
Oikawa laughs. 

  
  
(Later, days after falling back into a comfortable routine, after finding and loving each other again, Oikawa pulls Iwaizumi aside in the secluded hallway they're walking down. He kisses him. Kisses him like he's always wanted to, and it feels perfect, right.  
  
It's something he'd never want to give up. Iwaizumi responding, reciprocating his feelings is only more motivation.   
  
_If I want this, I have to fight._  
  
_If I want to live in a world where we can always be together, I have to work for it._  
  
_No matter what._ )

...

Everything goes wrong. So, so wrong.   
  
Oikawa discovers that not only is Iwaizumi a simple soldier, a traitor to his own people by fighting for the Britannian army, but he is the pilot of their newest Knightmare. The one that Oikawa and his supporters always have such trouble defeating.   
  
They've faced off so many times in battle, nearly killed each other, have wanted to kill each other countless times without even realizing it.   
  
That's daunting. And something Oikawa hates.   
  
But Iwaizumi doesn't know he's Zero. He doesn't know that Oikawa is the famed leader of the rebellion, and Oikawa wants to keep it that way. He wants things to stay normal, steady between them. He wants Iwaizumi to stay by his side, to always love him.   
  
But that doesn't happen. As if the world would make it easy for them.   
  
They meet, face to face after a plan gone wrong. Oikawa didn't mean to destroy their chance for peace, but his Geass is powerful, uncontrollable, and he messes up.   
  
His carelessness in using the Geass on Sugawara, who had sought to set up a peaceful dwelling where Japanese and Britannians could live in harmony and equality—a plan Oikawa initially hated, but soon finds himself agreeing with—results in the deaths of so many people. 

Iwaizumi is the one who chases him down, corners him.  
  
"I should have figured it out sooner," Iwaizumi mutters before the mask is even off. "I had suspicions, but I ignored it because I thought even you would be above something like this... Tooru."   
  
Oikawa doesn't respond, bites his lip and resists the urge to scream in frustration.   
  
This isn't how it's supposed to be, dammit.   
  
When the mask does come off, broken apart by a bullet from Iwaizumi's gun, his fears,  _their_ fears are confirmed.   
  
"It is you..." For a second, it looks like Iwaizumi wants to lower the gun, wants to let go and forget all of this, the endless battleground between them, and close any distance that exists. To pull Oikawa into his arms and never let go.   
  
"Don't  _stare_ , Iwa-chan. It's rude, even if you are surprised."   
  
"You're a damn bastard, Oikawa!" he screams. "How could you do this?  _Why_ would you do this?!"   
  
"Don't be self-righteous, Hajime! You aren't perfect! You've lied and killed people too. You betrayed people to make the world into what you want it to be!"   
  
The look in Iwaizumi's eyes, the shock on his face, says enough.   
  
_Not you, though._    
  
"And you can't see straight when you want something!" Iwaizumi screams. "You don't think clearly, you're reckless. You're willing to throw everything away, to sacrifice anything, even yourself!"   
  
"What are you saying?"   
  
"That it didn't have to be this way! That you're not alone and you never have been!"   
  
Oikawa laughs, bitter, angry, hurt. "Together, we're invincible, right?"   
  
(He remembers saying the words when they're children, arms stretched out toward the stars like they're just within reach. Iwaizumi is by his side, then, and when Oikawa looks over sees his face illuminated by the moonlight, his smile, he says it.  _Feels_  it.)  
  
"It's always been that way." Iwaizumi doesn't waver, still points the gun at him despite the softer words, the way they're whispered. "I'm your family, right?"   
  
"Yeah." He pulls out his own gun, chest aching, tears in his eyes.   
  
A gun goes off and he's not sure who shoots first. 

...

When he regains the memories stolen from him, ripped away by the Britannians, Oikawa fights again with a vengeance like no other. He lies to everyone, makes them think he's 'normal,' acts the same way around Iwaizumi on the rare occasion that they do see each other at school now that Iwaizumi's been appointed to Knight and Oikawa's supposed to be leading a fake life as a nobody schoolboy.   
  
He acts like he loves Iwaizumi still.   
  
(He doesn't have to pretend.)

...

"You didn't kill me," Oikawa says when they finally meet again after a battle, not hostile, not aiming to kill each other this time. "Why?"   
  
Iwaizumi looks down. Oikawa can see the change in him, can feel his doubts like they're his own, can feel his unwavering devotion to his cause—now proven corrupt and just as deceitful as Oikawa's—slipping. 

"You think I could?" Iwaizumi looks up again, angry now. "Do you seriously think I could ever kill you, Tooru?!"   
  
"I thought you didn't believe in me anymore..."   
  
"Maybe the problem is that I always did... that I always do."   
  
They don't say it aloud, not yet, but they don't have to.   
  
_I still love you._  
  
_I never stopped._  
  
He doesn't ask for an apology from Iwaizumi, doesn't need one. They've both done bad, they've both hurt each other.   
  
Still, now that they're standing side by side again, under the night stars like they had when they were children and had the whole world before them, Iwaizumi whispers, "Maybe I was wrong."   
  
Oikawa takes his hand. "Maybe we both were..." 

...

"So what now?" Iwaizumi asks, out of breath when the emperor is defeated, when they stand alone, together, the truth of Geass and the world's corruption that seems impossible to beat, lingering heavily between them.   
  
"Be my Knight," Oikawa says with a smile, the plan for what's next already forming in his head. 

...

"I'm not doing it!" Iwaizumi shoves Oikawa away. "I won't!"   
  
"Iwa-chan, we talked about this..." Oikawa sighs, sitting down on the bed in the palace that they had so quickly and succinctly overtaken once the crown was up in the air. This is their plan, they have to stick to it.   
  
It's the only way.  
  
"What if I refuse to do it?"   
  
"I have a Geass, Iwa-chan. Please don't think you're immune to it."   
  
Iwaizumi glares at him, clearly upset. "I fucking love you, Tooru. I know we've both messed up in the past, but you can't just expect me to—!" 

"Invincible, right?"   
  
"What?"   
  
"Together, we're invincible. We can even take down a whole corrupt system and fix the world." He reaches forward, takes Iwaizumi's hand. "You told me I'm not alone, right? That I never have been."   
  
"Yes," Iwaizumi says, certain, fierce.   
  
"Then stay by my side. Don't leave me." Oikawa smiles, a little shaky as he thinks of what's to come. But he chose this. He won't go back now. "Until the end."   
  
"Beyond that," Iwaizumi confirms, grabs his shirt and pulls him into a kiss. 

...

When Iwaizumi stabs him in front of all of the people who hate Oikawa, who want to fight what he stands for, to destroy Britannia's new evil dictator, Oikawa smiles.   
  
"Thank you, Iwa-chan." He coughs, tasting the blood in his mouth. "I... I knew I could always count on you to pull through."   
  
Iwaizumi scoffs, face hidden by the mask of the world's savior, which he'll cement his status as the moment Oikawa dies. "Of course... dumbass."   
  
Oikawa laughs a little, touches the mask, pretending it's Iwaizumi's cheek. "I love you."   
  
"I love you too," Iwaizumi murmurs, voice muffled. Like he's crying.   
  
"Until the end?"   
  
"Beyond that, Tooru."   
  
Oikawa dies in Iwaizumi's arms, a smile on his face as he thinks of the peace they will obtain, the new world they will create. 

...

Although constantly dragged down by the universe, by others trying to keep them apart, they've managed to come together, perfectly in sync and side by side as they achieve what they've both always wanted.   
  
Peace. Safety. A better world, one they could have been happy in.   
  
_Invincible._  
  
_Family._    
  
_Together_    
  
It's what they've always been.

Even after death, even after building the world anew, it's what they'll always be.

 

 


End file.
